Chapter 1370 The Conversation between Jihano and Craveyo (1)
"Alonso, you should have experienced the power of the Ming Dynasty more than two years ago. But that was just the power of military strength. The cultural customs of the Ming Dynasty are also fascinating. In addition to what I wrote in the letter, there are...
..." Claviyo had just met Jijano not long ago, so he didn't know much about the background of his visit this time. He also wanted to introduce the cultural customs of the Ming Dynasty.
"This is not urgent." Quijano immediately interrupted him and said: "The most important thing now is to understand the Ming Dynasty's willingness to trade with our country, whether it is willing to trade with our country, and how to trade."
"The emperor of the Ming Dynasty was very willing to trade with all countries. Even the Tianfang believers, who were very hated in their country, could come to Ming Dynasty to sell goods as long as they were willing to do business."
"However, the Ming Dynasty had great restrictions on foreign merchants doing business. So far, although there are rumors that more treaty ports will be added, there are still only two places, Bao'an and Shanghai, that allow foreigners to do business, and only one from
Siamese merchants were allowed to do business in the capital of the Ming Dynasty. Of course, there were foreign merchants who did business privately with merchants on the coast of the Ming Dynasty. However, if they were caught, they would be severely punished, so most merchants would still go to these two places.
A shipping company," Clavijo said.
"Because Africa is connected to Asia, goods cannot be transported directly from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean by ship, so merchants from all European countries, including Castile, will not come to the Ming Dynasty to do business by sea. All merchants from Europe
It must have come to the Caspian Sea through Eastern Europe and did business with the Ming Dynasty on the coast of the Caspian Sea. If the Ming Dynasty did not control the east coast of the Caspian Sea, it also planned to occupy colonies on the east coast of the Caspian Sea as an advanced base for doing business with the Ming Dynasty. So I think
What we know is the military presence of the Ming Dynasty in Central Asia." Jijano said.
"Why, you're not from the Western Regions?" Claviyo asked in surprise. The western region of the Western Regions was not directly under the central government of the Ming Dynasty, but was ruled by a vassal king who was enfeoffed there. Theoretically speaking,
, whether trading with a certain country does not require the consent of the central government; of course, there is a difference between reality and theory. If Yunxi firmly refuses to allow it, Shang Bing will not violate his will. But if Yunxi allows it, there is no need to ask.
As for the attitude of the Ming Central Court, you only need to understand what Shang Bing means. And Shang Bing is in the Western Regions. If they come from the Western Regions, they should not ask this question when they already know that the Ming Central Government agrees to trade.
"Because the matter is urgent," Quijano briefly introduced the background of his mission to the Ming Dynasty, and finally said: "In order to do business with the Ming Dynasty as soon as possible, the team of envoys I led took a boat from Castile to Alexandria.
port, crossed Egypt and took a boat on the Red Sea to the Ming Dynasty, landed in Shanghai, and then rode to the capital of the Ming Dynasty. Our navy joined forces with the Venetians and Genoese to cross the Bosporus, consolidating the Venetian presence on the Black Sea.
A colony on the north bank plans to follow the Don River to the place closest to the Volga River, occupy another colony, and plans to use Slavic slaves purchased from the Golden Horde to build a canal to connect the Volga River to the Don River. Waiting for this
After the canal was built, they came to the coast of the Caspian Sea to do business with the Ming Dynasty."
"Because it will take time to build the canal and reach an agreement with the Golden Horde on the control of this trade route, I was asked to take the sea route to the Ming Dynasty first and sign a trade agreement with the Ming Dynasty. When I return to the West, I will start from
By then, the canal will be barely navigable. Even if it is not navigable, the agreement with the Golden Horde should have been reached, and merchants can safely use this route to do business on the Caspian Sea."
"Moreover," Quijano whispered again: "Prince Ferdinand also asked me to find out if the Ming Dynasty had any new progress in navigation. If the earth under your feet is really a sphere as Ptolemy said, then in Europe
There may be connected seas to the north of the subcontinent or to the south of the African continent. In that case, Castile would not need to unite with the Italians."
The Castilians are eager to have a sea route directly connected to the Indian Ocean or the sea east of the Ming Dynasty. Since the trade routes in the Middle East are monopolized by the Great Eaters, most of the profits generated from East-West trade are occupied by the Great Eaters.
Cannibalism has been achieved. This is why the cannibals with poor land and uneasy farming can support prosperous cities, developed education, science and excellent art. Once the profits from trade are lost, cannibalism will inevitably
It will decline rapidly. Therefore, it is definitely impossible for the cannibals to give up this trade route.
All European merchants and nobles were very dissatisfied with this. If they wanted to get some goods from the East, they would probably have to go bankrupt. Many nobles had to bear usurious loans that they could not repay for several lifetimes. This may also be the reason for their massacre.
Or because they worked very hard to drive out the Jews - if the creditor is gone, of course the money does not need to be paid back (is it very similar to what an American child said a few years ago? It seems that the ideas of Europeans and their descendants are consistent, and have been instilled in them since childhood)
(to their children). But although there is a way to make the debt disappear by eliminating the creditor, they still hope that goods from the East will be cheaper.
So when it became possible for them to bypass the Ming Dynasty and obtain goods from the East, all European merchants went crazy. They hoped to obtain goods from the Ming Dynasty through the new trade route.
But the excitement of European merchants in different places was different. Italian merchants in Venice and Genoa were the most excited. In the past, the entire trade route for selling Eastern goods to the West was jointly monopolized by the Cannibals and the Italians.
The Big Eaters are responsible for the Indian Ocean section, and the Italians are responsible for the Mediterranean section, and they share huge profits. But the Big Eaters' profits are greater than those of the Italians. They have long been dissatisfied with this, and now suddenly another trade route has appeared.
The Italians were eager to open up this trade route, get rid of the cannibals as middlemen, and obtain goods from the East, thereby creating a monopoly for themselves.
But merchants from Castile and other countries are not as happy as they are. Although this newly opened trade route bypasses the Great Cannibal, it still has to pass through the Eastern Mediterranean, a territory that the Italians have been operating for a long time.
It doesn't make much difference to most Western European businessmen that others can't get involved; Castile's navy is powerful and is the largest in Europe at this time. It seems that it should be happy to get a piece of the pie. But how can people be satisfied?
At this time, Prince Ferdinand, the regent, thought: 'Our navy of Castile is the best in Europe. If it is a trade route that does not pass through any country's sphere of influence, it will definitely be monopolized, at least a large part of it.
To get the maximum profit; but now because it still passes through the Eastern Mediterranean, it is really unfair that profiteers in Venice and Genoa must share the pie.'
So before Quijano left, Ferdinand specially called him here and asked him to learn about the matter from Claviyo. After all, Claviyo had been in the Ming Dynasty for two years, so he would definitely know about such a major event.
"This," Claviyo thought for a moment, then said, "I haven't heard that the Ming Dynasty discovered a new shipping route in the south of Africa. The Ming Dynasty did send a fleet to the Indian Ocean before. The Ming Dynasty called it the Western Ocean, but the furthest
They only reached the eastern part of the Dashi Peninsula near India, without exploring southward or going deep into the Red Sea. As for the merchants of the Ming Dynasty, more and more Ming Dynasty merchants tended to transport their goods to India for sale by themselves, traveling from the east coast of India to the Ming Dynasty.
The shipping routes were increasingly occupied by Ming Dynasty’s own merchants, and the Great Eaters had retreated to India or Sumatra.”
"However, there were new discoveries in the Ming Dynasty to the north and east. Just three years ago, one year before the war between the Ming Dynasty and Samarkand, the Ming Dynasty emperor sent an exploration fleet led by a prince to discover a large area.
A large continent, at least as big as the mainland of the Ming Dynasty. Before exploring this new continent, they sailed along the continental shelf from the north and discovered that there was a strait between the two continents, which was named Beijing Strait. The navigators of the Ming Dynasty believed that
There is a sea in the north of Eurasia, and this strait is connected to the sea in the north of the continent."
"North? Well, I'll note it down. When I go back, I'll tell the navigators at home to try to explore the north." Quijano kept in mind what Claviyo told him. (To be continued)